Many Americans do not have the massive angst towards Russia that Washington holds. Looking at this from another point of view the one thing both Syria and Ukraine both have in common is Putin. Trump likes to negotiate so here is his chance to end a lot of bloodshed. We are now in the unique situation to resolve two major conflicts at once if the desire to do so outweighs the egos of the players as well as their petty differences and the lust for making money from producing weapons of war.

If we supported a free election that allowed eastern Ukraine to become a sovereign nation it would go a long way in getting Putin to put Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's feet to the fire and move him towards agreeing to surrender a small part of his country. The article below gives the rational for this move.

To answer Bernhard Kopp about Russians as "Eastern Slavs":
A combination of topohydronimic, historic, ethnographic, linguistic, archeological and anthropological data contained in the works of tsarist Russian scholars of 17-20 century, as well as many Western, Persian, Turkic, Greek sources show that between VI and XVI century A.D. there was no connection between the state of Moscovia-Tataria and the old Rus centered in Kyiv. The biggest "proof" that Moscow offers in support of the theory that Russians and Ukrainians come from the same ancestors are the allegedly very old manuscripts, which were "discovered" en masse in the times of Catherine II. Today, the Kremlin does not allow an independent expertise to analyze these manuscripts regarding their contents, paper, ink and handwriting.
Modern Russians are approx. 50% Finnish and 50% Tatar (Turkic). The only Slavic immersion occured after Peter I, when Ukraine (old Rus) was eventually occupied by Moscovia. In 1721, Peter I issued a decree by which his State - known to everyone at that time as Moscovia-Tataria - was arbitrarily renamed as Russia or Russian Empire. In other words, Moscow had stolen the history of Old Rus, whose territories had never covered the territory of modern Russia (with the exception of Novgorod and Pskov).

The geopolitical analysis seems sound. But why on earth would the Russians have thought Trump had a decent chance of becoming the US President, a good enough chance to justify the risks? The strong consensus of US experts was that he had little or no chance. Why should the Russians have thought differently? Assuming they did hack DNC emails, the purpose would appear to have been to delegitimize Hillary Clinton, in the expectation that she would be the next President. Delegitimizing her would make her less effective.

Most Russians would probably dispute that Ukraine is a legitimate independent country. For them it is south-western borderland of Russia and nothing else. Even Western Ukraine, which was Polish and Austrian for quite some time in history, is predominantly populated be eastern slavs, i.e. Russians. Most Russians also do not believe that the Ukrainian language is an independent language. They view it as a regional dialect. Present time Ukraine is a coincidence of history born through the will of the former party chiefs of the SU of the region with the strong support of russophobe diaspoa-Ukrainians from the USA. The way present time Ukraine has earned legitimation as an independent state, segregation of state powers, rule of law, independent judiciary, recognition of state institutions by the population, etc. is weak, at best. The ruling elite in Kiev has learned, that 'proclaiming liberal democracy' as a goal has brought and still brings billions of outside financing which can then be spent to their benefit. It is no coincidence, that the Kiev parliament is a parliament of millionaires, a singular situation in Europe and the West. On and off for more than 20 years the US has publicly played with the plan to take Ukraine into Nato and before 2008 even Georgia. It did not help the Western position with Russians that President Obama received the then interim prime minister Arsenis in the Oval Office right after the putsch, and even before the interim government was legitimized through elections. In the Russian thinking, Mr. Arsenis was at that time solely legitimized by the CIA and the State Department. For Russians, Ukraine is and will remain much more sensitive then Cuba and the Soviet missiles where to the US under President Kennedy. Every Ukrainian knows, and every Russian knows as well, that Kiev is the 'Mother of all Russian cities'. Holy Russian soil.

Western states were foolish to provoke Russia by interfering so blatantly in Ukraine, but Russia's response reeks of desperation. It may have helped elect a friendlier administration in the United States but it has also helped label Trump as a potential Quisling whose capacity to act constructively in regard to Russia will be strictly limited. Going forward, Russia -- for lack of an effective negotiating partner -- may just have to grin and bear the Western sanctions, while doing the international community's work in stabilizing Syria. That's not a comfortable position for any Russian government.

Russia cannot allow a democratic Ukraine, with all that goes along with it, free press seperation of the exective, judiciary and the church. Freedom of the press is very dangerous to a dictator, if the Ukrain has an uncorrupted democraticly elected government with good education, health and some form of welfare provision, the Russian people will begin to ask the most dangerous of questions if they can have it why can't we.

I have two comments to this piece of my good friend Sam:
First, Ukraine's drift toward EU and NATO is not so much the point; the real point is Ukraine's drift to having a non-corrupt political system. This is the biggest danger to Kremlin. EU and NATO are simply the embodiment of such a system, but - theoretically - Ukraine as a non-corrupt democratic state can exist without EU or NATO membership. EU and NATO are needed only as protection from assault by Russia on Ukraine and not because without them Ukraine cannot exist.
Secondly, it is not very clear to me what "an inclusive settlement" means, or "a new stable equilibrium". I am afraid that by pursuing this approach we fall into a trap that in any given conflict the truth is somewhere in-between. This is the wrong assumption for any conflict. In this particular case, the truth is not in-between. I do not see any reason why we should accommodate any Russian interest at all when we speak of Ukraine's sovereignty, territorial integrity or the form of internal government. It is none of their business. Ukraine does not meddle into any internal affairs of Russia. So, if the initial premises of a renewed US-Russia dialog regarding Ukraine includes Ukraine around the table and presupposes return of Crimea and withdrawal of Russian troops and armaments from part of Donbas - that would be fair. Any other terms would mean betraying the values in exchange for Real Politik.

Ukraine lost much more than Crimea. They lost the Donbass with it's several million residents and heavy industry as well. They also lost the great chance they had to develop a healthy economy and attract investment from every direction by maintaining good ties to all their neighboring countries.

The so-called "revolution" , euromaidan, or whatever you want to call it, has brought nothing but calamity to the country. It will take decades to reach even the (miserable) GDP the country had pre-2014.

Whatever Russia has lost doesn't compare. The political mistakes in Ukraine have cost them dearly indeed. There were other paths available.

Samuel Charap and Timothy J. Colton say Ukraine is the key to "a new stable equilibrium in relations between Russia and the West." The authors say all parties are well advised to "urgently make a good-faith effort to resolve the conflict there, whose latest victim was Hillary Clinton. She lost the election due to Russia's meddling. Trump won, but doubt about his legitimacy will persist, but at least the public should understand why Putin helped him win.
Even though Putin bore a grudge against Clinton, whom he auccsed of fomenting anti-Kremlin protests ahead of his return to presidency in 2012, it may not have been sufficient enough for him to go to "great lengths" and take "great risks" to interfere, by spreading fake news and discrediting Clinton. Such hostile act was "unprecedented" and would have been "unimaginable " in the 2012 election. Despite frictions Russia and the US could still maintain a good working relationship.
It all changed in February 2014, when the Maidan Revolution in Ukraine led to the ouster of Viktor Yanukovych - a stooge, who had planned to join Putin's Eurasian Economic Union, instead of pivoting to the EU. Putin’s response "fundamentally transformed the West’s relationship with Russia." Apart from his resentments towards the West after the fall of the Soviet Union, which he said was "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century," his fear of NATO's eastward enlargement, and his revisionist dream of restoring the Soviet's former glory, Ukraine has a special place in Russians' heart, mind and history. Putin couldn't stomach the idea of losing Ukraine to the West.
Over a thousand years ago, the Rurik dynasty ushered in the rule of Prince Vladimir the Great (Prince Volodymyr in Ukrainian), He founded the Kievan Rus and set the course for Christianity. Under Yaroslav the Wise (grand prince 1019-1054), Kiev was the capital of all the Russian states, as well as the main political and cultural centre in eastern Europe. The Rus brought stability to the emerging nation. But internal squabbles among the princes of different states, and warring tribes threatened to destroy what had been achieved. In 1237-40 the Mongols' invasion brought down the Kievan Rus which moved the capital to Moscow. Among the legacies it left through the centuries and up to the present day, were the Orthodox Christianity and the Cyrillic language.
As Putin failed to keep Ukraine in the fold, he decided to annex Crimea and launch a hybrid war in eastern Ukraine, which is being kept on low flame to destabilise the country. The West condemned Russia's expansionism and posed sanctions, which had taken a toll on Russia's economy. The dwindling oil revenues exacerbate the situation. In retaliation European countries have been witnessing increased Russian aggression at sea and in the air. The Kremlin began to undermine the West by supporting Euroskeptics in Britain and within the EU; frustrating "Western efforts to address major international challenges, most prominently the Syrian civil war"; scraping "longstanding US-Russia agreements on nuclear security and non-proliferation" etc.
Putin's meddling in the US election constituted "a significant risk for Russia," as it has alienated much of the public and "nearly the entire US political elite." Even if it is difficult to gauge "the extent to which the leaked emails affected the vote," Trump won't be able to have a normal relationship with Russia, without raising the spectre of a Manchurian candidate. He has suggested a lifting of the sanctions in return for nuclear arms reduction. But this is not right, Russia had violated Ukraine's territorial integrity and shouldn't get away with impunity. What Trump proposed meant that he would "capitulate to Russia."
The authors suggest, "in light of Russia’s unbending commitment to maintaining its influence in Ukraine, an inclusive settlement there may well be necessary to prevent the Kremlin from pursuing ever more aggressive options for asserting its position." They ask how to "strengthen the case for open dialogue and tough negotiation," when the West lacks such a policy. They say, "we have arrived at this point precisely because both Russia and the West have spent over a decade seeking unilateral advantages and eschewing negotiated compromises." Have they spoken to Ukrainians and aksed how they feel and what they want? They aspire to be part of Western Europe. What can outsiders do if both sides can't compromise?

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